M Christine Delea's Blog, page 14

August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower by Twyla Hansen

August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower

by Twyla Hansen

In the middle of rolling grasslands, away from lights,

a moonless night untethers its wild polka-dots,

the formations we can name competing for attention

in a twinkling and crowded sky-bowl.

Out from the corners, our eyes detect a maverick meteor,

a transient streak, and lying back toward midnight

on the heft of car hood, all conversation blunted,

we are at once unnerved and somehow restored.

Out here, a...

Curriculum Vitae by Lisel Mueller

Curriculum Vitae

by Lisel Mueller

(published in her 1996 book, Alive Together: New and Selected Poems, from Louisiana State University Press)

1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.

2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into

confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of

course I do not remember this.

3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The

world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.

4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building

with ...

Awkward Much?: Prompt

You should really read today's poem on this blog, in which the speaker is waaaaaay beyond feeling awkward--she feels as if her soul has died.

You don't have to go that far.

Remember or invent an awkward situation, a time when you or someone you know/create felt out of place/out of sync.

Many of you will probably have to dig deep into your teen years. If you are like me, you can just wander through the last few months and find something.

Use this moment (or longer) as the base of your piece ...

In Montana: Exotic by Gwendolen Haste

In Montana: Exotic

by Gwendolen Haste

(published in Poetry, January 1924)

Her frightened soul shrank

When she saw

The bitter crumbling hills of shale.

And the high cutback,

Gashed and raw,

Struck her eyes like the wall of a jail.

The years ran by

Indifferent,

And she never grew used to unfenced land,

Nor dust blown high,

Nor scrub pines bent

In the midst of shuffling wastes of sand.

When her years were told

Her voice was sour

And her eyes were as hard as small black beads.

Her mouth was co...

When I Think of the Immortal Jellyfish by Christen Noel Kauffman

When I Think of the Immortal Jellyfish

by Christen Noel Kauffman

(published in Whale Road Review, 2016, Issue 16)

I think of the way your legs sprawl across my lap, your bellybutton a map of how once I

split myself in two. I remember the fibrous web of a peeled orange and how you asked me

to tell you the color of sound. How I feel the finality of moving spheres, the sun burning out

on the crevice of your neck. I won’t see the last time your ribcage expands into drum or

that the sky is a memo...

Phoenix Rising: Prompt

Today's poem on my blog starts with destruction but ends in a very different place.

From today's creative endeavor, start your piece--whatever it is--in a bad place. That place can be literal or figurative or both.

Then change direction and end up in a different, better place (again, literal, figurative, or both).

For inspiration, read the poem on my blog, "(A terrible kaleidoscope)" by Lina Kostenko, translated by Uilleam Blacker.

(A terrible kaleidoscope) by Lina Kostenko, translated by Uilleam Blacker

(A terrible kaleidoscope)

by Lina Kostenko, translated by Uilleam Blacker

(published in published in Words Without Borders, April 2016)

A terrible kaleidoscope:

In this moment somewhere someone dies.

In this moment. This very moment.

Each and every minute

A ship is wrecked.

The Galapagos burn.

And above the Dnipro

Sets the bitter wormwood star.

Explosion. Volcano.

Ruin. Destruction.

One aims. Another falls.

“Don’t shoot!” a third implores.

Scheherazade’s tales run dry.

Lorelei sings by the R...

Gay Marriage Poem by Jenny Johnson

Gay Marriage Poem

by Jenny Johnson

(published in her 2017 book, In Full Velvet, Sarabande Books)

We could promise to elope

like my grandmother did

if a football team won

on homecoming night.

We could be good queers?

An oxymoron we never

longed for. We could

become wed-locked

as the suffix was once intended:

laiko, Common Teutonic for play,

not loc, Old English for a cave,

an enclosure. Instead

of a suit, I could wear my T-shirt

that avows, “Support Your Right

to Arm Bears!” Or we could

...

Happy Foot Sad Foot by Ruth Madievsky

Happy Foot Sad Foot

by Ruth Madievsky

(published in Bat City Review, Issue 16)

This world is equally home to sleeping dogs

and intestinal parasites

eyebrow brushes and Congress

the Everglades and Supercuts and Russian delis

where shopkeepers plunge bare hands

into buckets of sardines

It belongs to the rotating sign outside

the Silver Lake foot clinic

that predicts what kind of day you’ll have

depending on whether Happy Foot

or Sad Foot flashes

as you drive by

To the smell of rubbing alco...

Death Be Not: Prompt

Today I was in a group of 5 and the subject of what we believe happens after we die. (Other topics of conversation included pistachio ice cream, Stevie Nicks, aliens, weddings, and a lot of other topics.)

Death is a popular topic for all art forms. Poets, of course, love to explore questions with no definitive answers.

Individually, we most likely all have a hunch, if not a strong belief, in what comes after. In our group of 5, 2 said a definite afterlife, 2 said nothing, and 1 said our ener...